As Apple launched the first subscription app for iPad with News Corp., Google announced catchup steps for Android: new "Honeycomb" tablet support, a new web app store, and new in-app purchases all along the lines of what Apple delivered a year ago or more. But the next wave of Android tablets are far more like Microsoft's Tablet PC than Apple's streamlined, ultra simple iPad.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb

On Wednesday, Google previewed its upcoming, tablet-oriented Android OS 3.0 Honeycomb. The new release runs existing Android smartphone apps, but is intended to enable a new class of tablet-sized apps, just like last year's iPad, except that iPad launched with hundreds of prominent app titles and has since generated a library of more than 60,000 iPad-optimized apps.

However, unlike the iPad home screen, which served as a larger version of the iPhone's, Google has designated the home screen of Honeycomb tablets to serve as a dense array of widgets spanning multiple pages, more like a PC desktop, with a lower "System Bar" containing app switcher controls and a taskbar (called "notifications and system status"), an upper "Action Bar" with search and app launching controls, and a series of virtual desktops, each containing a configurable Dock-like strip of app icons below a series of floating panels that can present media playback controls, live inbox and calendar items, stacks of ebooks and youtube videos, and other user configurable mini-applets.

This should make Honeycomb tablets more akin to Microsoft's Tablet PC than Apple's iPad, and attract a similar audience of users. Apple's iPad 1.0 offers a far more simplistic home page, which Google derided as being just "a warehouse full of apps" in its presentation.

Google's presenter said Honeycomb tablets have a desktop that is "an application development platform in itself," using the same widget mini-apps that appear on Android phones. One drawback to existing Android widgets is that they often constantly poll for data, eating into battery life. Apple designed iOS devices to do very little until the user actually launches an app, enabling an exceptionally long battery capacity.

Apple pursued a similar strategy with iPods, dimming the screen and effectively coasting as much as possible to preserve battery life while playing music. Competing devices, including Microsoft's Zune, chose instead to present graphic effects that made for good demonstrations but were ultimately just impractical. A key feature of last year's Android 2.1 was Live Wallpapers, which similarly animate the background for cool effects that require illuminating the screen to even see, identically favoring frills over battery life. One reason why Windows Tablet PCs haven't ever gained traction with users is their poor battery life.

Google said it had spent a lot of time optimizing graphics performance in 2D and 3D, and demonstrated new API support for hardware accelerated user interface animations intended to deliver "overall polish," similar to the LayerKit API that first debuted on the original iPhone in 2007 and which later made its way to the Mac OS X Leopard desktop as Core Animation. A lack of consistent hardware accelerated UI support in Android is blamed for its jerky and lagging experience, a particularly notable problem on the Android 2.2 Froyo-based Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Android's new RenderScript drawing API was demonstrated by opening the eBook app and turning virtual pages using the same page turning effect Apple showed off a year ago when it launched the iPad, but the effect was presented as if it had never been seen before on a tablet.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb also delivers some features Apple's iPod 1.0 doesn't, including support for features of Google Maps 5.0 (including elevation views with 3D buildings), a popup notification system that presents update notices similar to the Windows taskbar, a very complex camera app, and support for GoogleTalk video messaging, something similar to Apple's FaceTime in iOS 4.0 but which is not exposed on iPad 1.0 because, like most Android smartphones, it lacks a front facing camera. Google's presentation was short on technical details, including whether or not GoogleTalk might be compatible with FaceTime.

The new Android release also catches up in some respects to iOS 4.0 in adding support for some basic new enterprise policy management features, HTTP Live Streaming and an "extensible DRM framework" that should enable Android users to use apps that make use of protected content such as Netflix.

On page 2 of 2: Focusing on a market that doesn't yet exist, Android Market on the web.
Focusing on a market that doesn't yet exist

Google apparently intends to bring features of Honeycomb to Android smartphone users at some point, but did not say when this might happen; Honeycomb is targeted exclusively at tablets. Android 2.2 Froyo, which was released last summer alongside Apple's iOS 4, still only shows up on half of the smartphones actively using Android Market, with several modern phones still not providing upgrade paths to that version by their hardware maker or carrier.

With virtually all of Google's installed base currently using smartphones, the debut of Android 3.0 Honeycomb and its new features exclusively for tablets that don't yet exist is an interesting strategy, and the opposite of how Apple launched its iPad.

In contrast, Apple released an interim iOS 3.2 on the new iPad last spring, then shortly afterward delivered iOS 4.0 first for its existing installed base of 150 million of iPhone and iPod touch users, waiting to deliver those same features for the few million new iPad users until the release of iOS 4.2 in November.

By delaying key features of Honeycomb from all of its existing Android smartphone users in a bid to capitalize on the iPad market, Google is indicating that it values new markets more than its existing customers. Similarly, the company prematurely cut off a support roadmap for Android OS updates from the initial Android model, the T-Mobile G1.

A variety of other Android phones continue to ship with months-old versions of the Android OS and few models are updated within three months of new OS releases; some recent phones have waited six months or more to see updates roll out to their devices. This suggests that features of Honeycomb are unlikely to percolate down to the increasingly large installed base of Android smartphones until the end of 2011 at the very earliest.

Additionally, the Motorola Xoom tablet Google used to demonstrate Honeycomb uses a screen size and resolution similar to iPad, meaning that even if Honeycomb is ever made available to the current crop of 5 inch and 7 inch tablets (such as the Dell Streak and Galaxy Tab), its expansive, detailed user interface won't work unless, as Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs quipped last fall, users are also given a file to whittle down their fingers.

Jobs added at the time, "we think the 7 inch tablets will be dead on arrival, and manufacturers will realize they're too small and abandon them next year. They'll then increase the size, abandoning the customers and developers who bought into the smaller format." Customers of the Galaxy Tab are already returning them on a scale approaching 16 percent, suggesting the format and build of the device was just as DOA as Jobs had predicted.

Android Market, on the web

Android's equivalent of the iOS App Store hasn't ever been very compelling, in part because its only viewable from within Android smartphones. Google's own developers have complained, as Jon Lech Johansen did, that "Google does far too little curation of the Android Market," citing "few high quality apps," limited support for app sales outside the US, and no support for carrier billing or credit card payments.

Johansen also cited examples showing that "trademark and copyright infringement is widespread in the Android Market," specifically noting phony "iTunes" and "App Store" titles. Months later, the examples he gave are still there, but Johansen now has something new to complain about: Google has also released a web-based client for Android Market to compete against his own DoubleTwist, a third party equivalent of iTunes for Android users.

A year ago, Apple similarly added web-based browsing for iOS apps to iTunes Preview. The difference is that Apple's web store links to iTunes for purchases, which can be made via credit cards (since 2008); Google still only accepts its own Google Checkout for payments.

That's helping to hold back sales of Android apps, a problem Google is "not happy" about. Among the steps the company is taking to address the problem are plans to offer alternative billing through carriers and in app purchases.

Apple introduced in app purchases two years ago as part of iOS 3.0. Hardly on the forefront of mobile development, Google has also been beaten by RIM, which not only announced but also delivered developer support for enabling in app purchases in BlackBerry apps today. Google will begin testing of in app purchases in a few weeks and plans to have the new system operational by the end of the quarter.

Doesn't look appealing to me, but then, I think the iPad is dumb also. Who wants a laptop with no keyboard? Who wants a cellphone you can't fit in your pocket. Ok, all those iPad sales say I'm wrong. I guess people have more money than brains.

Honeycomb looks like crap.
Google can't catch up to Apple's swag baby. Sorry fandroids.
Google can pimp their main guys in headphones and attire suited for casual Fridays all they want to convey a hip, laid back swag but they ain't got sh** on Apple.
And the fandroids try as they may, swear that Honeycomb is the "be all to end all" in terms of tablets OSes. Yet that narrative wasn't even in the public sphere before Apple dropped the ipad almost a year ago. WTF!!! LOL!!!

Flame if you want but I actually like the idea that Google have sat down, thought about how they would want a 10" tablet interface to work, and then customized Android from the ground up for that interface.

What Google have created is something distinctly different from what the iPad offers. I can't say I'm personally be interested is buying one, but I appreciate that Google are offering an alternative.

We can't Google-bash when they copy what Apple does and then Google-bash again when they don't.

..But the next wave of Android tablets are far more like Microsoft's Tablet PC than Apple's streamlined, ultra simple iPad.

What else did one expect? Just reading all the rantings from fandroids pretty much took any surprise out of the abilities of Gingerbread. It's a cluttered, non-intuitive, micro-managing system that is perfect for geeks and techtards that have nothing better to do that to constantly fidget with the thing, and all for the mantra "I put what I WANT on it, make it work to my desires, and I don't have anyone telling me what I can and can't put on it... oh yeah, it's all OPEN!" </rant>

Gingerbread is developed by geeks, for geeks, because Google doesn't know what the regular-joes of the world would want, since that would involve actually having to talk to real, human beings.

I like how the article says " Googles busy new Tablet". LOL. what the article fails to understand is that you can make it as busy or nothing but a background on the desktop. But I guess its a matter of choice, something Jobs does not let his iPad sheep have.

It took Android about two years to be the number one mobile OS in the world, i'm guessing it will take Honeycomb and the following version there of even less to come out on top as the number one tablet OS.

What else did one expect? Just reading all the rantings from fandroids pretty much took any surprise out of the abilities of Gingerbread. It's a cluttered, non-intuitive, micro-managing system that is perfect for geeks and techtards that have nothing better to do that to constantly fidget with the thing, and all for the mantra "I put what I WANT on it, make it work to my desires, and I don't have anyone telling me what I can and can't put on it... oh yeah, it's all OPEN!" </rant>

Gingerbread is developed by geeks, for geeks, because Google doesn't know what the regular-joes of the world would want, since that would involve actually having to talk to real, human beings.

No thanks, I'll pass.

The geeks shale inherit the earth, Anyway Android is number 1 in the world so who cares what you think.

I like how the article says " Googles busy new Tablet". LOL. what the article fails to understand is that you can make it as busy or nothing but a background on the desktop. But I guess its a matter of choice, something Jobs does not let his iPad sheep have.

It took Android about two years to be the number one mobile OS in the world, i'm guessing it will take Honeycomb and the following version there of even less to come out on top as the number one tablet OS.

hahahahaha number one with all the shitty piece of crap comparing to Apple. Look at those crapdroid users next to Apple iOS, they look so freaking poor

Honeycomb looks like crap.
Google can't catch up to Apple's swag baby. Sorry fandroids.
Google can pimp their main guys in headphones and attire suited for casual Fridays all they want to convey a hip, laid back swag but they ain't got sh** on Apple.
And the fandroids try as they may, swear that Honeycomb is the "be all to end all" in terms of tablets OSes. Yet that narrative wasn't even in the public sphere before Apple dropped the ipad almost a year ago. WTF!!! LOL!!!

Thats what they said about Android on the mobiles war, look at Android now, number 1 in the world. LOL. Its so funny, jobs has even banned the word Android from his app store because he is afraid of it. I give the Google tablets a year before they are the number one Tablet OS. iPad is just a big iPod touch, and dumb name by the way. It makes me feel all fresh every time I hear it.

iPad looks like its an aging tablet OS. and it cant even do real multitasking,only on some Apple apps and even less third party apps. what garbage.

Thats what they said about Android on the mobiles war, look at Android now, number 1 in the world. LOL. Its so funny, jobs has even banned the word Android from his app store because he is afraid of it. I give the Google tablets a year before they are the number one Tablet OS. iPad is just a big iPod touch, and dumb name by the way. It makes me feel all fresh every time I hear it.

iPad looks like its an aging tablet OS. and it cant even do real multitasking,only on some Apple apps and even less third party apps. what garbage.

You've got your Androids mixed up with your tablets dude.
Android is not a tablet. Android is free, so smuckphone makers will use it for their plastic. It's so cheap, Verizon was offering 2 for the price of 1, so you're counting the Android in the drawer. Come Thursday, the iPhone will be available at Verizon and Android can start fudging their numbers again.
Android displays smuckphone-sized graphics on a larger-sized tabloid, so your sticking a round peg into a square hole. Number one and most in the world means nothing. Three-quarters of the world don't use toilet paper. Guess that would include you.

I believe 15 million iPad users and 95% of the market is not an insignificant number. iPad 2 is already awaiting a Spring launch. When all these Honeycomb tablets launch it will be Christmas. Anyone getting one for Christmas will be a beta-tester.

So keep spouting your ignorance. You wouldn't know how to operate a geek phone or a geek tablet anyway.

I use an Android tablet and an iPad daily and have to say: the author doesn't know what he is talking about.

Microsoft's tablet PCs are a direct adaptation of desktop systems, with cumbersome window management, pen input, and other misfeatures. They are totally different from both Android tablets and iPads.

Android tablets are very much like the iPad, only that they offer some additional features: you can (but don't have to) put widgets on the home screen, you get additional soft keyboards (many of them far superior to Apple's), and applications are better integrated and more consistent than iPad apps.

I guarantee you, just like Apple finally gave in and added multitasking to iOS, Apple will be adding widgets and other Android features as well: they have to, otherwise they'll be falling behind further and further.

Android 2.2 is already a superior tablet OS to iOS 4.2, and Android 3.0 is far ahead of iOS 4.2.

You're a fool if you think Apple is protecting you from that. Apple's review process cannot catch any of that, as several high profile blunders have shown where people smuggled secret functionality into apps that were only pulled when people started telling Apple about it. At best, Apple can pull dangerous apps from the App Store once they get user complaints. But that's the same thing Google does with Market.

Unlike iOS, however, where your applications run largely unprotected, Android's permission system actually enforces protections for apps, so if the app doesn't request access to personal information, you can be certain that it won't get any either.

If you were around in the sixteenth century, would you rather have bought an original painting from Leonardo DaVinci, or would you rather have bought a pale imitation that was being sold to you in the street by a homeless beggar?

The iPad is like the Mona Lisa and all of the countless tablet copies coming out this year are the pale imitations being made by a bunch of companies playing monkey see, monkey do. Nobody has even come out with a viable contender to seriously compete with iPad 1 yet, and iPad 2 is right around the corner.

I use an Android tablet and an iPad daily and have to say: the author doesn't know what he is talking about.

Microsoft's tablet PCs are a direct adaptation of desktop systems, with cumbersome window management, pen input, and other misfeatures. They are totally different from both Android tablets and iPads.

Android tablets are very much like the iPad, only that they offer some additional features: you can (but don't have to) put widgets on the home screen, you get additional soft keyboards (many of them far superior to Apple's), and applications are better integrated and more consistent than iPad apps.

I guarantee you, just like Apple finally gave in and added multitasking to iOS, Apple will be adding widgets and other Android features as well: they have to, otherwise they'll be falling behind further and further.

Android 2.2 is already a superior tablet OS to iOS 4.2, and Android 3.0 is far ahead of iOS 4.2.

There are 2 pages to the article. Your Android tablet is too small to read the whole article.
If you are happy with your Tab, then go away.
All 15 million iPad users are probably not as smart as you are and Steve Jobs will be phoning you in a few minutes for advice on how to save Apple computer. Please help.

There are 2 pages to the article. Your Android tablet is too small to read the whole article.
If you are happy with your Tab, then go away.
All 15 million iPad users are probably not as smart as you are and Steve Jobs will be phoning you in a few minutes for advice on how to save Apple computer. Please help.

If you were around in the sixteenth century, would you rather have bought an original painting from Leonardo DaVinci, or would you rather have bought a pale imitation that was being sold to you in the street by a homeless beggar?

The iPad is like the Mona Lisa and all of the countless tablet copies coming out this year are the pale imitations being made by a bunch of companies playing monkey see, monkey do. Nobody has even come out with a viable contender to seriously compete with iPad 1 yet, and iPad 2 is right around the corner.

You are much too kind. I see these tablet copy-cats as parasites and leechestoo cheap and dumb to do research and design themselves. They can't even come up with a different colored screen/face-plate. They're all black and chrome, glass and rounded corners.

IPad 2 is indeed around the corner so if any parasitic/leech-brain tablet appears to be a threat, all Apple has to do is drop the price of iPad 1. What these parasites and leeches should have done is soup up the netbooks. Now they're just trying to play Apple's game and failing.

You're a fool if you think Apple is protecting you from that. Apple's review process cannot catch any of that, as several high profile blunders have shown where people smuggled secret functionality into apps that were only pulled when people started telling Apple about it. At best, Apple can pull dangerous apps from the App Store once they get user complaints. But that's the same thing Google does with Market.

Unlike iOS, however, where your applications run largely unprotected, Android's permission system actually enforces protections for apps, so if the app doesn't request access to personal information, you can be certain that it won't get any either.

So what was that news item about the Chinese robots gathering info?
So what about the crapware phone companies and phone/tablet makers install?
Android is free, Google has no responsibility for what happens. If you have a problem, you have to deal with the provider or the phone/tablet maker. Good luck with that. Hello, Samsung, I downloaded this app and I think it's causing everything to slow down, could you walk me through this? Genius bar?

if they wrap this up in a nice price, they will have a great success with it, simply because once apple is too expensive. apple has now got all the early adopters, apple fans and loyal fanbase. but that's it! many, many people out there buy things only if they can afford them. apple, it would be time for an ipad and an ipad pro! the ipad pro is what we have right now (including camera, retina display, aluminum design) and the "other" ipad is plastic/rubber, "normal" display, bad facetime cam and comes in black, white, orange, tangerine, green and pink! and it also has a price tag of 299 us$ for the white, and 349 us$ for the other pads!

This is the most reactive, "hater" article I've ever read on AI. I love Apple products and I like the iPad (I will probably wait until iPad 2 and/or iOS 5). But Honeycomb is genuinely neat. I don't understand the comparison to Windows tablets at all.

Windows = PC software shoehorned into a tablet
Honeycomb = built for touch tablets from the ground up

There was tons of stuff that Apple/iPad needs to catch up on (of course, who knows what they have planned for April/June):

-Using the home screen for more than a "warehouse of apps". The iPad has 7 times as much space as an iPhone, so why just use it for more rows of icons? 99% of the time I agree with Apple's "less is more" philosophy, but in comparison the iPad's real estate looks so wasted. Most of the time, widgets do suck (ooh, a prettier weather icon!). But Honeycomb does it right by allowing you INSTANT access to your most used things (e.g. inbox, Twitter feed, and there's still plenty of space).

-Notifications. Sorry, big purple box popping in front of everything sucks! I liked how a simple little profile pic slid up from the corner notifying the user of a new email or whatever it was.

-Cross-accessing content between PC and tablet without syncing! I hate syncing my iPhone just to get one song I just downloaded or one app...

OK everyone, don't get defensive. I've been using Apple products since 2003 and they're my favorite brand. But that DOESN'T mean that no other company has good ideas! Google (and pretty much all other companies) owe Apple for everything smartphone since 2007. But the aforementioned things are areas where I really hope Apple steps up and improves itself in iOS/iPad/iPhone. Otherwise they will get left behind...

This is the most reactive, "hater" article I've ever read on AI. I love Apple products and I like the iPad (I will probably wait until iPad 2 and/or iOS 5). But Honeycomb is genuinely neat. I don't understand the comparison to Windows tablets at all.

What can you expect from DED? He is totally biased and he is not ashamed of lying or telling half the truth if he can bash Google or Microsoft.

Doesn't look appealing to me, but then, I think the iPad is dumb also. Who wants a laptop with no keyboard? Who wants a cellphone you can't fit in your pocket. Ok, all those iPad sales say I'm wrong. I guess people have more money than brains.

The iPad isn't a laptop and it isn't a phone and was never meant to be either. Most people with brains know this as Apple has been saying from day one that the iPad is a new category of product, think media consumption device.

Honeycomb tablets and iPads are what they are, don't like them, fine, don't buy them but there is no need to disparage people who may find them fun or useful. Obviously not everyone can understand how useless they are like you can.

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." Douglas Adams

If you were around in the sixteenth century, would you rather have bought an original painting from Leonardo DaVinci, or would you rather have bought a pale imitation that was being sold to you in the street by a homeless beggar?

The iPad is like the Mona Lisa and all of the countless tablet copies coming out this year are the pale imitations being made by a bunch of companies playing monkey see, monkey do. Nobody has even come out with a viable contender to seriously compete with iPad 1 yet, and iPad 2 is right around the corner.

I agree that as of Feb 3, 2011, there are no viable competitors on the shelves. But Apple can't rest - Android (+Honeycomb, now) is RAPIDLY growing in numbers and accumulating features.

Xoom/Honeycomb/Android/Google
+Very loose restrictions
+Brand new UI with customizable pages
+Allows skins, themes, moving backgrounds, etc.
+UI is good, but not great
-many different OS versions, many different devices/compatibilities
-App quality is low
-App profitability is low (no profit = no devs)
-hardware quality is variable (I like Google, but I'm hesitant to buy a Xoom from Motorola)

Of course, they're on two different timelines so it's hard to compare directly. It wouldn't be perfectly fair to compare the Xoom (sold zero devices, OS is not released to public) to the iPad which as moved 10 million devices in 9 months or something. The fairest comparison will probably have to wait until June...